Chickasha excited about Adamson

October 18, 2012

After a 9-month administrative leave ended Eddie Adamson’s 5-year tenure as Guymon Chief of Police, the Arkansas-native begins work Monday at the Chickasha Police Department southwest of Oklahoma City.
That department has been without a chief since Lynn Williams retired in December 2011. Chickasha City Manager Stewart Fairburn told Shannon Rigsby of ChickashaNOW.com that Adamson was chosen from a large field of candidates.
“Mr. Adamson’s five years as chief for the City of Guymon and his 16 years with the Forrest City, Ark. Police Department has produced a great deal of experience that will be valuable in Chickasha. He has served on the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Commission, the 1st Judicial District’s Drug Investigation Task Force and the Guymon/Texas County 911 Board, as well as traveling the country teaching law enforcement,” Fairburn said.
Fairburn said Adamson is “well versed” in creating policies and procedures, which will help the department in its quest for accreditation.
The Website goes on to say The City of Chickasha hired a firm to complete a background check on applicants for the position. Fairburn said the firm interviewed people in Guymon including the city manager and “everything came back glowing. Even the city manager’s responses were more than satisfactory.”
Fairburn said he doesn’t have a answer for why Adamson was still on paid administrative leave more than nine months later. ChickashaNOW spoke with Adamson and he doesn’t have that answer either.
Adamson told ChickashaNOW.com that Chickasha offers many positives, including an active downtown. He believes in emphasizing community oriented policing and said he brings a lot of know how to the position for building partnerships between the community and law enforcement.
“Chickasha is thriving,” Adamson said. “It doesn’t mean everything is perfect. There will certainly be some challenges emerging in the future.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am,” he said. “Chickasha is a city very similar to the location where I grew up and where I spent the bulk of my law enforcement career. I’m honored and humbled I get to come to a location like Chickasha, myself and my family, to relocate there and become part of the community - not just the chief of police ... but people who are proud to be there.”
Guymon City Manager Ted Graham told The Guymon Daily Herald that the position of chief in Guymon will now be posted. Michael Babb has been interim chief since Jan. 27.
Chickasha is a city of about 16,000 located 270 miles southeast of Guymon or about 42 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. The Chickasha Police Department employs 24 uniformed officers in the patrol division.